Monday, August 13, 2007

Purple Balls (ondeh ondeh)

I was talking to Zue on Sunday about everything under the sun and as usual it will end up with food :) We talked about sweet potatoes and I told her that I bought some special sweet potatoes from Philly Chinatown. Since she too bought some sweet potatoes last week so we decided to make ondeh ondeh together in a different kitchen. Here is my purple version of the ondeh ondeh.

Look like ordinary sweet potatoes Is purple in colour - steam it until soft Chopped some gula melaka (palm sugar)Make into balls Boil it and coat it with fresh grated coconut And 'Voila' purple ballsNote : Can someone enlighten me why the boiling water turn into green when I boil the potato balls? There must be some scientific reason for that.

Gert,Can you throw few biji ondeh2 to me,pleaseeee...I like this Japanese sweet potato rather than the regular orange and yellow one.Dunno why called Japanese sweet potato.I think the purple color must mix with other color as well to jadi green..sorry me no scientist..just know how to makan:)

it's usually green.however, purple looks really nice...may be next time, can make both color, better for the presentation right...half purple, half green...n u make me feel like making some...hmmmsooo malas to go to the shop to buy sweet potatoes..u send some to me lor... :P

Gert .... de-ja-vu in Seattle! My sister made purple ondeh-ondeh in Melb a while back that looked exactly like yours, right to the grated coconut pieces because no electric spinner like those we have back home. Is yours done the same way? How do you scrape the coconut out of its kernel?

Rita, what a co-incidence that your sister made the same purple ondeh ondeh :) I used frozen grated coconut. I do have some gagets to scrape the coconut but is too much work. Easier to just used to frozen one. You might be able to get purple potato from the Asian supermarket. David explanation must be too teachnical for you :) :)

Note : Can someone enlighten me why the boiling water turn into green when I boil the potato balls? There must be some scientific reason for that.

The purple color in vegetables is a result of a pigment known as anthocyanin which are also antioxidant flavonoids that protect many body systems. Anthocyanins are sensitive to acidity and are are extremely water soluble, changes in acidity (pH) cause the compounds to alter their structure. The compounds change and the acid is evaporated off the surface of the potato into the water.

Wow, is the ondeh ondeh so easy to make... I go try it... just steam the sweet potato, mash it, put chopped up gula melaka inside & boil & coat with grated coconut & that's it?? I don't need to add flour or eggs or anything to the sweet potato? My last ondeh ondeh attempt came out quite nice initially then became really hard... & heaps more work too... hoping this will be real nice... :-) Thanks for sharing...

Regarding the green color, the sellers of Stokes Purple potatoes write that when making things with purple potatoes and baking soda or baking powder, the baked products sometimes turn green. This makes me guess that it's the alkali nature of baking soda that does it. Also, the water in parts of the midwest and the west in the US tends to be alkali (due to calcium carbonate, a.k.a. limestone in the soil), so maybe if the water in your neck of the woods has a pH much above 7, that's what's causing it.

Hi sorry... is there actually a recipe that I can follow for quantities, etc... :-) I just realised I have the same purple sweet potato that you have & would sooo love to have this for our dessert tonight... :-) Thanks. Karen (same Karen that posted before too... I have finally found the purple sweet potato... just by chance... yay!)

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I was born and raised in Malaysia and now live in Northern California, USA with my wonderful husband Carlos. I love to bake and cook. It is very relaxing and I find my creativity flowing in the kitchen. I creates this blog to record all my cooking and baking adventures and also share my tested recipes with you.
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